Book Review - The Wedding Cake Tree by Melanie Hudson

 

The Wedding Cake Tree by Melanie Hudson

Published: 7th  April 2015 (Paperbacck Edition)

Publisher: Choc Lit UK

Pages: 384 pages

Available on Kindle and in Paperback

Order now from Amazon

 

Blurb

Can a mother’s secret past provide the answers for a daughter’s future?
Celebrity photographer Grace Buchanan has always known that, one day, she’d swap her manic day job for the peace and quiet of her beloved childhood cottage, St Christopher’s – she just didn’t expect it to be so soon.
At the reading of her mother’s will, she’s shocked to learn that she hardly knew Rosamund at all, and that inheriting St Christopher’s hangs on one big – and very inconvenient – condition: Grace must drop everything for two weeks and travel the country with a mysterious stranger – war-weary Royal Marine, Alasdair Finn.
Caught in a brief but perfect moment in time, Grace and Alasdair walk in Rosamund’s footsteps and read her letters at each breathtaking new place. As Grace slowly uncovers the truth about her mother’s incredible life story, Alasdair and Grace can’t help but question their own futures. Will Rosamund’s madcap scheme go to plan or will events take an unexpected turn?
An emotional, fun-filled and adventurous journey of a lifetime.

 

Review

The Wedding Cake Tree is Melanie Hudson’s first novel and I thought it was brilliantly written in a very evocative style which left me hooked until the end.

Grace Buchanan is a commercial photographer, longing for the day she can settle down in her childhood home St. Christopher’s, a cottage hidden away from the outside world. Sadly for Grace this day comes a little too soon as her mother Rosamund passes away, but before Grace can claim her inheritance she must embark on a journey planned by her mother, taking with her hunky military man Alasdair.

Grace reluctantly sets off on the journey which takes her to across England, Scotland and even Europe, at each destination Grace learns more of her mother’s past through letters Rosamund has written and slowly she begins to piece together the mystery of her mother’s life and who her father was.

As Grace and Alastair begin their journey they are quite hostile to each other but like any good romance as they begin to get to know each other they begin to have more feelings for each other which eventually become passionate. I loved the way these two interacted with each other, they didn’t want to grow emotionally attached to each other but could only fight their feelings for so long. However their road to romance wasn’t exactly smooth but one which I found very enjoyable to read about.

I think the thing I love best about this novel was the descriptions of the places visited by Grace and Alastair, it was so realistic. I have never been to Scotland and climbed a mountain but while reading about these two doing just that I felt that I had been there too. I loved the twist at the end too, which was unexpected but I think worked really well in helping Grace to finally settle in life.

The Wedding Cake Tree is a lovely novel about going on a journey to discover who you really are and where you belong in the world. I thought this was done really well and the simmering romance between Grace and Alastair was perfectly pitched to fit with the story. I’m interested to see what Melanie Hudson’s next novel is like and if she can again capture the essence of many places in one book.